


tell the devil i said hey

by modernpatroclus



Series: raven!neil [1]
Category: All For the Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, M/M, Past Rape/Non-con, Raven!Neil, Threats of Rape/Non-Con
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-26
Updated: 2016-06-26
Packaged: 2018-07-18 06:43:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,456
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7303726
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/modernpatroclus/pseuds/modernpatroclus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Andreil + grenade by Bruno Mars? But instead of the other not feeling the same they actually do (BC lets be honest it andreil and they'd die for each other without another thought)</p><p>Or: AU where Nathaniel was caught and sold to the Ravens after his mother's death.<br/>He escapes and joins the Foxes as Neil Josten, but when Andrew is sent to Easthaven, Riko threatens him with Proust if Nathaniel doesn't return.</p>
            </blockquote>





	tell the devil i said hey

**Author's Note:**

> took prompt inspiration for the raven!neil au from all the wonderful multichapter fics that are ongoing, but this is solely focused on andreil + their idiocy

Neil knows Andrew hates him. He knows that Andrew won’t thank him, will possibly even pull a knife on him for what he’s doing.

But when Riko threatened Andrew at the Christmas banquet, promising “exposure therapy” via his therapist, Neil couldn’t let it happen. _Not again._

Nathaniel had only been at the Nest for a year, and in that time, he’d lost track of how many times Riko had sent someone to Nathaniel’s bed against his will. He remembers all too well having to help Jean get dressed, not only in his gear, but in regular clothes, after Riko had Jean raped, because Jean had been in too much pain to dress himself. Neil remembers how that felt, too.

If Neil Josten has to be sacrificed so that Andrew isn’t violated again, Nathaniel is willing to make it. He’ll be walking right back into the hell he’d escaped only six months before, and this time, Kevin insists, he might not live to walk back out.

“I know what I’m getting into,” Neil snaps, roughly shoving things into his bag to hide his shaking hands.

“Neil–” Kevin starts to argue, but Neil doesn’t let him finish.

“I _know_ , Kevin. I lived there for a year, and in that time I went through more shit than you ever had your whole life there. I know what I’m getting into.”

Kevin is quiet for a moment, before he asks, “Why?”

“You know why.” Neil sees understanding in Kevin’s eyes. But what he says next catches Neil off guard.

“You have feelings for him.”                                                                                                                                 

Neil’s hand freezes over the tee shirt he’d been rearranging, and he stiffens.

“What?”

“That’s why you’re going.”

Neil abandons his packing to round on Kevin. They’re not quite chest-to-chest, but he manages to make Kevin recoil a bit in fear.

“No, it’s not. I’m going so that Riko doesn’t have Andrew’s shrink fucking rape him in rehab. Don’t mistake me for weak, Day.”

Kevin regards him for a moment before he slowly nods, stepping back.

“You’ll come back.” His sudden confidence throws Neil off. Kevin sees his confusion. “You can call yourself any name you want, but Nathaniel Wesninski has survived living with the Butcher, on the run, and in the Nest. You’ll come back.”

Neil flinched when he heard his real name, but he closes his eyes and reigns in his fears. Kevin is right; as much as he abhors any connections or similarities to his father, he has to put “Neil” aside and take all he can from Nathaniel.

If he has any chance of surviving, it has to be this way.

-

Andrew doesn’t care that Neil is absent from the party picking him up from Easthaven. He doesn’t.

He _does_ care about Neil breaking his promise to protect Kevin in his absence, though. And the way Kevin keeps glancing over at Andrew when he thinks Andrew isn’t looking, then darting his gaze away when Andrew looks over – it tells Andrew that Kevin knows something.

So when he pulls into the lot back at Palmetto, he keeps Kevin back. “Where is he?” There is no emotion, no curiosity, in the words. It’s hardly even framed as a question. _He doesn’t care this is about Kevin he doesn’t give a shit about some lying runaway_

Kevin refuses to meet Andrew’s heavy stare for all of a minute before Andrew grows bored of his spinelessness. He steps into Kevin’s space and wraps a hand around Kevin’s throat just tight enough to threaten possibility, to toy with Kevin’s lungs. Andrew promised to protect Kevin, but he also promised to protect Neil. If Kevin knows something – if Kevin _helped_ Neil put them both in danger by having Neil leave Kevin to almost certainly walk into danger himself –

But before Andrew can decide where to hide two bodies, Kevin gasps out, “Evermore.”

Andrew narrows his eyes at Kevin and loosens his grip a fraction. Kevin wheezes for air, and Andrew has to refrain from narrowing his eyes. The drama queen. “Elaborate, Day.”

“Neil went to Evermore for break.” Andrew doesn’t say anything; there’s nothing to say. One of the men he’s sworn to protect willingly walked into a nest of vultures, no matter what they call themselves. And in the process, he left the other man they’d both sworn to protect alone.

“Why?” Andrew asks after a few minutes of tense silence, of Kevin probably praying to walk away unscathed lest he have to sit out for a game.

“He said Riko threatened you,” is all Kevin gets out before Andrew releases him. He gets halfway across the parking lot before Kevin recovers enough to call out and follow him, but Andrew ignores him and goes to the dorms.

When he gets to their room, the first thing Andrew does is pull out someone’s laptop and book the nearest flight to West Virginia.

-

“Careful, Nathaniel. You forget your place one more time and I may have to give you a double punishment tonight,” Riko quietly threatens as the team files into the locker room, a mumble in Nathaniel’s ear that only he can hear.

Nathaniel’s stomach rolls at the implication: a “double punishment” from Riko can either mean being forced on by two men at once, or one right after the other. He’s endured both more than once.

He has to physically bite his tongue. If he opens his mouth, Nathaniel will either throw up or say something he shouldn’t, and either one will lead to Riko’s threat becoming a promise.

“Don’t look so disgusted, Nathaniel. Fourteen has missed you. He played so much better today after having you last night.” Riko doesn’t bother learning the names of double-digit players, but Nathaniel knows exactly who he’s talking about.

Nathaniel can’t stop his violent flinch at the memories of the night before, or the “Fuck you,” he chokes out, because he knows that Riko has already decided on tonight’s punishment. He should know better, but Nathaniel can never go down without a fight, no matter how many times he has to lose (and he’s only won once out of hundreds, a victory meaningless now that he’s right back in the ring).

His horrified reaction only deepens the twisted gleam in Riko’s eye. “Oh, I have missed you, Nathaniel. You have the most fight in you. Breaking you never gets old.”

-

Andrew Minyard hates Neil Josten. He’d kill Neil himself, just to spare himself the misfortune and stress of keeping an actual murder magnet/martyr alive, but that would mean breaking his promise.

Instead, Andrew finds himself on a plane (which he hates), mere hours after being released from rehab (which was hell), to rescue a man who simultaneously has the biggest will to live and the biggest martyr complex (who he hates).

The only thing to distract him from his near-paralyzing fear is his equally near-paralyzing rage at Riko for daring to touch what belongs to him – because _he still doesn’t care, it’s only about the deal._ He is going to bring Neil home – no, _back_ – and he is never going to let the idiot out of his sight again.

-

When Nathaniel and Riko are alone that night in Riko’s dorm (that was once also Kevin’s but has since been Nathaniel’s, something he will never get used to) and Riko turns his back to dig out his favorite pair of handcuffs, Nathaniel has to force his anxiety down by reminding himself why he willingly came back to such a terrible place.

By now, Nathaniel knows that Andrew must be out of Easthaven. He probably hates Nathaniel for leaving Kevin, and for going back to Riko when he called, like a dog to his master. Nathaniel shouldn’t care what Andrew thinks of him when Riko is handcuffing him to a bed to torture him. He should be worrying about the injuries he’ll have to play through tomorrow, and hope against hope that he’ll survive long enough to see graduation.

But as Riko pulls out his favorite, recently sharpened knife, Nathaniel still can’t regret his decision. Nathaniel has survived this sort of violence for years, even before he had been sold to the Ravens. His father was the first to carve a knife into his flesh, and it has been an on-and-off punishment throughout his short life. If he has to endure this, and whoever Riko sends to rape him, it is nothing he hasn’t survived before.

And though Andrew may hate him, at least Nathaniel knows that Andrew is safe from Proust.

-

After the plane has landed and Andrew has procured a rental car, Andrew breaks a new personal record for dangerously fast driving to get to Evermore and to Neil. His rage is fueling him, and he hardly registers getting past security and into the gates of the obnoxiously dubbed “castle.”

He faces more security as he makes his way deeper into the Nest, but they’re a mere annoyance to Andrew, who is saving his true wrath for Riko and anyone stupid enough to help him.

When Andrew reaches the bottom of the stairs, he’s met with a nondescript Raven who, judging by his look of anger mingled with disgust, definitely recognizes Andrew.

“How did you get in here?”

Andrew is on him in a second, pinned to the wall and hand to his throat. “Where is Riko?” he snarls. He can feel the Raven swallow under his grip, eyes pathetically frightened. The Raven’s mouth opens in what will either be a call for help or more protest, so Andrew moves one hand over his mouth and tightens the one over his throat just enough to remind him of the threat. “Point,” Andrew commands.

The Raven lifts a shaky finger and points to a bedroom down the hall that is slightly separated from the rest. He shoves the Raven away and wipes his hands on his pants as he makes his way to Riko’s door. He pauses outside of it to listen for sounds of a struggle or screams, but there’s no sound. It doesn’t reassure him, though. It’s probably sound-proofed. It’s locked, but picking it only takes a minute, and he makes sure to do it in a way that ruins the lock.

Andrew shoves the door open and sees Neil, bleeding and handcuffed to a bed, Riko looming over him with a bloody knife in hand and a gleeful smile on his face. They both turn at his entrance. Neil looks even more terrified, which Andrew mentally catalogues for later. Riko, though, looks outraged.

“How dare you come here after you rejected my offer,” he rails. Andrew doesn’t listen. He meets Riko halfway and, when Riko puts up a hand to strike, Andrew grabs it and breaks it. Riko crumples over and screams in pain.

Andrew doesn’t watch. He’s already working on uncuffing Neil, whose face is as white as their away jerseys.

“Andrew,” Neil chokes out. His voice is rough, raw from screaming. It does nothing for the tension in Andrew, who’s already doing all he can to focus on getting Neil out of here instead of killing Riko. “Andrew, you shouldn’t be here.”

Andrew ignores him and gets the second cuff open, throwing it behind him in Riko’s direction. Neil reaches for the worst-off wrist and rubs it until Andrew smacks his hand away. “Idiot, you’ll make it worse. Come on, we’re leaving.”

“I can’t–” Neil starts to protest, but again, Andrew ignores him and hauls him to his feet, keeping one arm around his back and under his arm in support.

“For good. You are never coming back here.” Neil doesn’t say anything as they make their way past Riko, but he does stare at him until he’s out of their sight. They don’t run into any more Ravens on their way out, and Andrew assumes it’s because they must all be in bed.

They get to Andrew’s rental car and he reclines the passenger seat back, then guides Neil slowly into it. Neil flinches, but Andrew doesn’t comment on it. He knows that Neil has been raped before, possibly as much as or more than he himself. He’s certain it happened again since Neil returned, likely more than once.

When Neil is as comfortable as he can get in his state, Andrew gets in and wastes no time pulling out of Evermore. When they’re on their way to the airport, Andrew breaks the silence. “Explain.”

“I had to go. Riko threatened someone.”

“Riko is full of threats. You went running back like a lapdog for no reason.”

“This was real, Andrew. I couldn’t stay and let him do it.” Neil’s voice is rising, but Andrew stays calm and drives.

“Who did he threaten? Your priority was supposed to be Kevin, if you’ve forgotten.”

“I didn’t break my promise because I didn’t promise to stay by his side the whole time. I promised to protect him, and Kevin was safe with the Foxes. This was more important.”

“Who did he threaten?” Andrew repeats, because Neil had evaded it the first time.

Neil doesn’t say anything for a tense minute, and Andrew is about to ask again when Neil answers. “You.”

It takes all of Andrew’s self-control not to pull the car over right then and throttle Neil.

“I do not need your protection,” he grinds out, white-knuckling the wheel.

“He threatened to have Proust rape you in Easthaven. You couldn’t have done anything to defend yourself while you were puking your guts out and probably sedated.”

Andrew speeds up and starts weaving through the traffic. “Stop playing a damn martyr. If you want to die so badly, I can just kill you myself.”

Neil snorts. “If you really wanted to kill me you would have done it by now.”

“Accidents take time to plan,” Andrew reminds as he pulls into the rental place’s parking lot.

“True,” Neil concedes. “But I think you don’t hate me as much as you try to fool us both into believing.”

Andrew turns off the car and turns to face Neil. He studies him in silence, regarding his tired but stupidly unguarded eyes. Andrew could kill him right now, and Neil wouldn’t even fight him.

Andrew must’ve leaned in, because Neil’s breath is right against his lips when he whispers, “Andrew.”

“Yes or no?” When Neil nods, Andrew grabs the front of Neil’s bloody shirt and pulls himself into Neil, careful not to touch his injuries. When their lips meet, Neil parts his against Andrew’s, and Andrew pushes his tongue past them into Neil’s mouth. Neil moans into Andrew’s mouth, and Andrew breaks away but leans his forehead against Neil’s while they catch their breath.

“Everything you do is stupid.”

Neil pants a breathy laugh. “What else is new?”

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed!


End file.
